Sunday Random

Movement alerts us to a hare springing from giant brindled haunches,

pausing to graze on alfalfa & weedy greens, dissolving in long grass.

A white monjita lands on a prickly pear, another on a wooden stake

rigged to an olive tree: sites with fragrance of ripening fruit & views.

We cycle through swarms of tiny black insects: every immersion

flecks our shirtfronts, arms, & thighs, catches Mike’s watering eyes.

Yesterday large ants gnawed the gardenias until Mike sprayed poison

fatal to the ants’ algae farms: today the foiled workers are gone.

One tree per day, I say, my promise to pull the giant weeds surrounding

each staked trunk, crowding the watering holes: Mike & I weed two.

I fill two banged-up construction wheelbarrows with large & small rocks 

I’ve dug while weeding, rocks to border our future vegetable plots.

Despite our plan for a rest day, we’ve biked, weeded, tested outlets,

repaired curtain rods, watered, hauled rocks: As always, we’re tired.

Besides, we’ve talked to each other more than usual: it’s what happens 

when the Internet’s down: we’re forced to spend time in the real world.

Lepus europaeus, European hare, liebre común

Xolmis iripero, white monjita, monjita blanca

these wheelbarrows proved too heavy to move